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Talk:Pandora
Possible explanation for strange occlusion of the moon. I was thinking about the strange shaped moon shadow. It could be explained if there were a Dyson Ring around Pandora or in orbit. Could this be a very oblique reference to Halo? The Dyson ring would have to be mobius strip shaped but there is no reason why you couldn't have one in such a shape. ZoeyMithra 15:56, April 6, 2010 (UTC) Planet Facing away possible? How would the "planet facing away from the sun" theory work when number one, it is listed as having a 90 hr rotational period (which I'd like to know where this information was obtained please) and number two, wouldn't the first settlers have been boiled alive if they habitated it during the winter when it was said to face the sun (based on that boiling, inhospitable wasteland when facing the sun theory). Also, back to the first thing, if a planet has a rotational period then it will face the sun at one point or another. This is confusing to me. SoBi 17:31, October 26, 2009 (UTC) Also, back to the first thing, if a planet has a rotational period then it will face the sun at one point or another. Tell that to Alaska 11 out of every 12 freaking months, where it swings between manic, neverending sunlight that still can't make things warm, to depressive, unceasing DARKNESS! TrollofReason 08:52, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :Better yet, tell that to the moon. It rotates at a rate so that when it orbits Earth, one side is always facing away - hence "the dark side of the moon". In other words, it's entirely possible that Pandora orbits the sun at a rate that matches it's rotational period just right. However, it does not, as Tannis refers to a "dim cycle". Contrary to that, I've heard that it's simply the light from the sun reflected off the moon of Pandora, which is why you don't have 90-hour periods between the light and dim cycles in-game. The 90-hour rotational period comes from one of Tannis' first journals, wherein she complains about it. -- 21:41, February 3, 2010 (UTC) Or, as I hinted, the habitable areas on Pandora where the game takes place are located in one of the two polar regions. I mean, the moon around Pandora is, for lack of a better phrase, stonking enormous. Also, in case you've noticed, except in The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, the ever present Pandoran moon is ALWAYS in shadow during the "dim cycle", while it's ALWAYS full during the "bright cycle". What this implies is that the light we take for in-game day/night is more than likely just reflected moonlight. It would also explain the utter lack of tans exhibited by the light-skinned locals and regular not-regularly-exposed-to-hot-flame Psychos. As for why everything doesn't freeze in the relative cool of the moonlight, well for that you'd need there to be a blasted hellscape along the equatorial zones sending constant hot streams of air up to the poles. Which would happen upon a slowly-rotating planet a little bit too close to its parent star. The thermal wind phenomena is supported by the fact that the windmills in the game never stop turning except due to damage, distruption (Rakk droppings), decomission, or design (brakes). TrollofReason 05:06, February 4, 2010 (UTC) :Um... right... :And the information comes from one of the Journal missions where Tannis says she's having a hard time adjusting to the ninety-hour days. 16:00, April 6, 2010 (UTC) Higher water levels I'm noticing certain areas in Pandora seem to indicate a much higher water level in the past. There is a canal system outside of the entrance to Krom's Canyon, and the vendor area inside Krom's Canyon is built like a dock, with pontoon floats bordering the raised platform. Almost all bridges span rivers that are virtually dried up. Might this be worth mentioning under Geography? Pakiwa 11:42, November 13, 2009 (UTC) ---- Pandora's sun/moon/orbiting planet Found! The best way I can describe how to see it is through this youtube video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAyHGl1Bf-w Follow to the edge of the area, look to the NW, and wait for the day/night cycle. Terane 10:29, November 14, 2009 (UTC) 9 native species? There are supposed to be 9 native species, not including Variants, humans, aliens. I seem to be missing some: 1. Skag 2. Rakk 3. Larva Crab Worm 4. Scythid 5. Spiderant 6. Rakk Hive 7. Trash Eaters 8. ? 9. ? DLanyon 16:39, December 17, 2009 (UTC) Maybe the 9th'll be revealed on the next DLC; that screenshot with the four legged thing and the new vehicles looks promising. Steel crab 07:58, February 3, 2010 (UTC) I would think the Eridians would be the Ninth. Who knows, they could be the native dominant species. And the Guardians, whether being Eridians or being created by them, would be native. Just a thought. 03:43, April 26, 2010 (UTC)Ion69 The History of Pandora Can I rewrites it, like I rewrites a lot of major articles in such a way that makes them better? As it exists it sucks, and leaves a lot of plot holes gaping open like wounds that will not heal! Wow, i just did that, didn't I? I suck, but not as much as this possible version of Pandora's history. TrollofReason 04:51, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :What plot holes? -- WarBlade 05:47, February 3, 2010 (UTC) Oh, sweet Enola Gay, where to begin? Oh! I know! with bullets! *This version of Pandora's history doesn't include any of the events as described in the manual. Pandora was, according to the few paragraphs in that lightweight tome, 'settled' by the first wave of Vault Hunters under the supervision of the Atlas corporation. Atlas most likely profited greatly off the venture, Vault or not, providing services and establishing the "commerce netowork" used by Marcus Kincaid... who its hinted at was born on Pandora. Along with Scooter and others. During this period the first Pandora sping/summer occur, and many harsh lessons are learned. Sanctuary is probably founded shortly afterward as Atlas was suddenly deluged with hundreds (if not thousands) of angry, desperate, variably armed and motivated Vault Hunter, merchant, and settler. *This version of Pandora's history also doesn't mention what happened to the first wave of Vault Hunters, many of whom probably found themselves stranded on a harsh, barren ball of dust filled with poisonous flora, hostile fauna, and a host of new and exotic diseases. The greater civilization and culture of Pandora, such as it is, was probably formed after this period, with legends of the Vault only being passed around by the locals as Atlas began to establish innsulated enclaves and gave Sanctuary over to its private military force, the Crimson Lance. *Some time later the Dahl Corporation takes notice of Pandora, its vast mineral weath, and rumors of the Vault. More than likely, it set up its opperations in relative secrecy, not looking for confrontation with the Atlas Corporation who has previous claims upon the planet Pandora. Perhaps Atlas evne condones the mining operations so long as they get a cut of the profits from the mines, and Dahl doesn't persue xeno-related archeology. *About four or more years before the events in the game, Patricia Tannis and her team arrive on Pandora. Through a mix of bad planning, bad descisions, and Skags, Tannis will be the only one left alive. *Three or more years before the events of the game (as indicated by the time-stamp on Tannis' logs), the discoveries made by her team reach Dahl and somehow Atlas (as indicated by the sudden, violent appearance by a full Star Brigade of Crimson Lance soldiers). *Two or more years before the events of the game, Dahl pulls out and in an apparent hurry, leaving much of it heavier hardware and all of its existing "workforce" behind opting to take only its more delicate personel and materials with them. This is likely because they know Atlas is coming back to Pandora to re-establish its claim. Tannis stays behind, the disparate work gangs left behind Dahl become the scattered tribes we call Bandits, and Pandoran civilization (such as it is) is under seige. *Tannis sends an off-world communique, reigniting foriegn interest in the Vault. Sledge finds a piece of the Vault Key, and his leads his tribe (one most likely different from Baron Flynnt's in alleigance) on a blood-soaked crusade for more pieces, gathering followers, weapons, territory, and power along the way. Baron Flynnt is contacted by the Crimson Lance and perhaps promised weapons, supplies, and maybe even a way off Pandora is he and his followers hold key chokepoints for the flow of people along the minimally settled regions of the planet. *Enter the player. Boo-fucking-yah. Comprehensive, coherant, and with a little clean-up, totally explains all the seemingly random happens in the game. TrollofReason 07:09, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :I wouldn't edit all that into the existing article, no. When take together with the existing history it actually bloats to the scale of a full-fledged article on its own, so I'd say start by writing it up on a subpage of your own user page, give other manual owners a chance to see and review it, then make an article for it in the main namespace. -- WarBlade 19:14, February 3, 2010 (UTC) Can I please rape the ever-loving crap out of the shitty History section of this article? It's ill-founded speculation is influencing other articles. 02:51, February 19, 2010 (UTC) :thank you for asking, but no. you may however, join up, get a user page, and lampoon the article to your heart's content. 03:25, February 19, 2010 (UTC) ::btw, is the history section based on the guide? clap? fen? anyone . . . ? :::I don't believe so. If it were, it'd probably be in the start of the guide (before character intros, mission walkthroughs, and the gun catalog). However, all I can find is this (which I've read already somewhere else, perhaps on the wiki): "Planet Pandora is a sparsely populated wasteland where the rule of law gets rewritten constantly in the smoke of the last gun battle. Civilization consists of small outposts on the fringe of human influence, in an area called the Borderlands. Pandora's one tourist attraction is a mythical Vault packed with fantastic riches, supposedly stashed eons ago somewhere on the planet by an advanced alien culture." (If there is an actual history blurb in the guide, which I doubt, post about it here. Otherwise, it's safe to assume the History is fabricated from bits and pieces in-game.) -- 04:07, February 19, 2010 (UTC) 172-guy was me. I read the Dahl article and saw it mention the "gold rush era" which is... no. Not mentioned anywhere canonically verified. It's just pure speculation, and speculation which doesn't take into account things like competition between the mega corporations, or even why Dahl might want, or be forced, to leave Pandora. TrollofReason 21:13, February 19, 2010 (UTC) From the wiki it seems that Dahl arrives after Crimson Lance and @TrollofReason said that Sanctuary was found by during the Lance occupation. However, isn't the city Sanctuary found based on the Dahl colony ship ? Which means that Dahl must've arrived somewhat before the Lance ????Harveydo (talk) 19:21, June 22, 2013 (UTC)Harveydo That seems more likely to me. Sanctuary wasn't just based on a Dahl colony ship; it *was* a Dahl colony ship. Snowskeeper---Till Hell Freezes Over. (talk) 20:11, June 22, 2013 (UTC) The Dahl ship, as i understand it... was first. That doesnt mean that a Lance scout or patrol cannot be present... even to the point of the Lance might have been escort to the Dahl ship. 20:16, June 22, 2013 (UTC) Yeah, but it heavily implies that Dahl was responsible for the colonization, not Atlas. Snowskeeper---Till Hell Freezes Over. (talk) 21:15, June 22, 2013 (UTC) That would be my understanding... oh, i see... my bad, lookes like sactuary was built to counter the Lance occupation (from the Dahl colony ship). 21:49, June 22, 2013 (UTC) Solar System Er, a few things, can we get some confirmation on the ten year thingy? And wouldn't an elliptical orbit be required for a planet-wide "summer"? I mean, for the entire planet to heat up it would literally need 'an orbit that brought it closer and farther away from its parent star by a severe degree. TrollofReason 21:23, February 3, 2010 (UTC) :I don't think a planet-wide summer is even possible. -- WarBlade 23:55, February 3, 2010 (UTC) It is if the planet itself is brought closer to the parent star as described with a moderately severe off-center elliptical orbit. To envision what an 'off-center elliptical orbit' is, imagine the Earth and its (very roughly) circular orbit were to be squashed into a path around the sun that looks like an oval. Now, push this oval along one of its narrower ends outward, and imagine that the curve moving farther away from the sun starts to get a bit wider while the part closer to the sun gets narrower. Now! With this orbital path in your head a few things are going to happen on Earth, firstly, axis-based summer/fall/winter/spring cycles are going to go right out the door and depending on how far/close this new orbit takes the Earth it's going to alternate between "goddamned long-assed miniature ice age season" and "short sweltering goddamn unholy dessert season punctuated by planet-wide monsoons at the begining and end, goddamnit!" The monsoons are unlikely to happen on Pandora considering how much water isn't present there... but you get the idea. Planet-wide seasons are possible, and as befiting global events, are going to be pretty freaking harsh for anything smaller than a continent... like human biengs, Skags, Rakk Hives, etc. There's probably a reason everything hibernates during the winter - the cold and the literal lack of energy entering into the biomass system during the very long Pandoran winter where starlight is at its weakest. TrollofReason 04:53, February 4, 2010 (UTC) :So, if it's a planet-wide summer, that means that the Eridian Promontory is ''very far north to be able to have snow, right? Or is it just not that hot of a summer? -- 04:59, February 4, 2010 (UTC) ::See above statement about the possible polar location of events as they happen in the game - Pandora could be at just the right distance. I mean, given its habitable atmospheric pressure, the temperature band between liquid, vapor, and solid would be as relatively narrow there as it is here on Earth. ::Also, the snow isn't all that pervasive, but that could be because of local geologic activity and Eiridian technology. 'Course, the snow itself could also be a result of the Eiridian technology, who knows? But putting THAT wild speculation aside, you're more than likely right about the promontory being far north.TrollofReason 05:15, February 4, 2010 (UTC) :::Snow in the Eridian Promontary looks more to me like a result of the alpine location, rather than just the distance from the equator alone. As for the elliptical orbit theory, the band of life capable distance from a parent star is narrow enough that that the ellipse theory doesn't hold up too well. If Pandora's orbit is elliptical then the temperature extremes would most likely kill everything on the planet, not wearing a pace suit. :::So here's my theory. Some people living North America have some extremely messed up ideas about the how the world works. A Canadian communicating to me last year, for example, stated that my Summer was in July as well as hers, until I pointed out that her perspective on the season only applied to the Northern Hemisphere, at which point she puzzled through the idea that I carefully explained and learned something entirely new that day. These sorts of odd perspectives are less prevalent in Canada and somewhat common in Texas. Interestingly enough, Borderlands is made by a company in a location where the planet is sometimes believed to be "made up of fifty-one states under the unfortunate control of a non-Republican government, dammit". I suspect that this location has influenced some rather profound mistakes in the designing of Pandora, namely, ideas like seasons being global, or North being the cold direction. :::So basically a faux pas. One that we can reinterpret easily by saying that the only place on this dust ball worth settling was in a winter phase of its cycle (when some other corner was frying in summer heat) and when it thawed Pandora unleashed merry Hell in the summer phase of its cycle in a relatively confined area. :::Just in case somebody takes umbrage at my commentary in the above post, please note that I also know someone here in NZ who claimed that the sun was different over on the west coast. The claim extended to the sun rising in the west and setting in the east... Yeah, seriously. -- WarBlade 06:54, February 4, 2010 (UTC) "North" isn't a relative term on Pandora navigation-wise, though that's about as relevant as assuming the geopgraphic location for where a game is made had anything to do with how a fictional planet was dreamed up. Though I will grant that alternating hemispherically-located seasons are a viable, plot-hole-proof possibilitity... up until you smack face first into a few considerations. The biggest of which being, "The satellite hinted at possessing or at least channeling the Guardian Angel overlooks a planet that doesn't appear to be alternating between seasons north or south." You're also forgetting that Pandora has an atmosphere. A rather thick one at that if Rakk are able to fly without the use of internal helium/hydrogen bladders (something they appear to be both too skinny and too-not-blowey-uppey to have)). This insulating blanket of breathable gasses would act sort of like a self-acting heat dissipation system, not to mention an evaporation retardant considering its implied thickness, and depending upon its greater composition a potentially efficient medium for heat radiation on the night side of the planet. Plus, though not neccessarily indicated in some of the statements made above when I described the constant wind on Pandora, cool air would be flowing beneath the hot air in a sort of self-regulating conveyor-belt, sparing much of the areas around the poles on the planet the scouring extremes of high temperature you've described. Also, things aren't always wet when cold, nor dry when hot. Considering the number of inactive Rakk Hives seen in the game, it's safe to assume that the events taking place are likely happening during a rapid, relatively dry "spring" period in Pandora's planet-wide cycle. Hot air blasting in from the uninhabitable equatorial zones are riding over the cold, thick air along the surface and melting stored water within the poles, slowly filling the shallow oceans visible in the game's final cutscene. The lack of water would cause dry lightning storms the likes of which were described in the optional quest "Power to the People" as dust and other particulates rub against each other in the opposing layers of atmospheric current. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a cloud in the Pandoran sky, and I don't know any other way besides dust and lots of opposing wind currents that might cause lightning strikes or storms without water vapor thickening the atmosphere. TrollofReason 08:56, February 4, 2010 (UTC) :what? no more theories? no tidal locking? no what if pandora is a satellite (with a satellite) of a super-gas-giant? come on, no one has even referenced niven or clement yet. get your slide rules out and grind kiddies, this one my favourite discussion pages. 05:49, February 23, 2010 (UTC) Mmmh, it's not that the theories havn't occured to me, I just find it unlikely considering what information is given by the game. The planet COULD be tidally locked to the star, but then the 90-hour-DAY would involve a complete orbit. Which would be interestingly possible, but require an inbound orbit no amount of atmosphere could survive, probably. Unless Pandora's sun is either a red/blue dwarf think Mercury in terms of how ungodly scouring the radiation and solar wind would be to an atmosphere. Then again, Pandora COULD have an intense magnetic field, which would serve much like Earth's, sparing the surface the majority of the radition and solar wind, helping to keep it blanketed in a mininal trace atmosphere but it wouldn't be breathable, also, again think of Mercury with its rivers of molten lead in terms of surface temperature. The planet could also be locked to the great stonking thing in the sky that brings the light when it's full... but it's been described as a moon. Granted, astronomic nomenclature is subject to revision over time (ala poor Pluto, you are a dwarf now, whatever that means (then again, Charon is as big, if not slightly bigger than Pluto)), but what constitutes a moon and the celestial body around which it orbits doesn't really need to be revised. As for a fourth massive body playing an important role in in the heavenly dance of Pandora, I've never seen nor heard any refence to it. And finally, I'm glad you enjoy my partially educated rants. TrollofReason 06:40, February 23, 2010 (UTC) Based on my calculations and observations, the events of Borderlands take place not in its summer, but in its winter. We know than the planet Pandora has a 90-hour rotation, and that a single cycle around its star takes ten Terran years. That yields 973 Pandoran days per Pandoran year. Tannis kindly kept daily ECHO logs. On day 76, her crew was attacked by Pandoran fauna coming out of hibernation, species unidentified. Let's call that the first day of Pandoran "summer." On day 718, she recorded her final message before scattering the logs throughout the Rust Commons and the Arid Badlands. That's six and a half Terran years after day 76, which puts it in the very middle of Pandora's winter. We don't know how long those logs sat there before the Vault Hunter picked them up, but the signal for Vault Hunters was sent over 30 days before that. Unless it took multiple Terran years for the VHs to respond to the signal, they must have arrived in winter. We also know that the events in Borderlands 2 take place five Terran years after the opening of the Vault. If the Vault was opened in midwinter, then Borderlands 2 takes place in midsummer. And in Borderlands 2 we see many different species of creatures, plus lush plant growth and blooming flowers. I think that this is not only a different biome, but the effects of the so-called summer. In the first Borderlands, we see many hibernating Rakk Hives (two of which eventually wake up and cause trouble). This could be winter dormancy. There are no Rakk Hives in Borderlands 2 because (conjecture) they've all uprooted themselves and wandered off, leaving their Rakk to fend for themselves in the seasonal summer warmth. Yours in overthinking a silly game, Dämmerung 01:17, September 14, 2012 (UTC) :Couple of observations, firstly we know the planet is volcanically active (either due to the nature of the core or the influence of the moon) which means it could produce enough heat to sustain the climate during winter when it is distant from the sun, Europa for example has a liquid ocean under the ice despite being a long way from the Sun. Second the extreme climate could be self regulating, monsoons in winter fill up the oceans and cause the large rivers while in summer the oceans evaporate and recede cooling the planet (similar happens in reverse on Earth with the ice caps, they expand in winter cooling the planet and recede in summer warming the planet). Theres no evidence in game that during the winter or summer theres ice anywhere but at the highest altitudes/near the poles Thirdly this could have influenced the evolution of the local fauna, three years cold or temperate followed by 7 years of harsh drought would cause the local wildlife to adapt to the prevailing conditions, they may find what we consider temperate to be too cold and so they hibernate though the winter (like bears and other mammals) emerging in summer ravenous for food, even on Eartth you have flora and fauna adapted to very different norms, for example if you take plants from the equator and put them in the northern hemisphere the lightest frost can kill them because they are not adapted to it, likewise if you took creatures from a temperate environment and stuck them in a desert they would quickly die of dehydration while the local fauna can go weeks without a single drink. Finally people are assuming the locals use the 90 hour days for example in Tannis logs, however if shes using Earth days then the timeline better matches up, Borderlands taking place about two years into summer and Borderlands 2 taking place near the end of the summer.The 12 hour clock which coincides with a 24 hour day/night cycle could just be an mistake on the developers part who forgot about the different length of the days. And a final final note, someone asked above about spacetravel, theres a line in game about people coming to Pandora/ the events on the planet being watched by 'the six galaxies' suggesting humanity has spread very widely indeed. Watcherzero (talk) 07:03, August 20, 2013 (UTC) Why I think the Crimson Lance drove off Dahl First of all, Steele is in charge of a STARBORNE brigade, that is a brigade of Lance that by their very title probably spend much of their life being deployed from one hotspot to another throughout the galaxy. Also, there is the fall of Old Haven, which is a new developement, and finally the drop pods being seen landing throughout the Salt Flats when Baron Flynt is finally killed. Now, unless we see, like, a pod cannon in the upcoming DL module, I suppose it could be safe to assume that those pods are dropped form orbit from a carrier-like ship instead of being launched and dropps like overbig artillery rounds. Why is this important? Because of the limitations of space travel. Even in this unspecified future of space guns utilizing poorly understood alien technology, space travel is still going to be slow, expensive, and dependent on things like gravity and Lagrange points - the distances at which stable orbits can be ahieved around a planet. Now, if the Dahl bigwigs were to wait until AFTER the Crimson Lance ship (or ships) arrive, they'd probably be stranded on Pandora. Now, ask yourself this, knowing the reputation for brutality held by the Crimson Lance, '''would you like to be stranded on Pandora? Or would you get out of dodge and damn the consequences to whoever you left behind? But, of course, this assumes that they'd have an incentive to stay anyway until the last possible moment. I base this speculation on something in the logs left by Tannis. "Lucerative" probably means quite a bit when one considers the interstallar nature of Dahl. Imagine resources enough to live comfortably within your own pleasure palace until the day you die, and with little to no oversight so long as the quotas are upheld. Remember, we're dealing with a galatic dystopia "ruled by corrupt mega corporations". TrollofReason 09:17, February 21, 2010 (UTC) Moon I'm just curious about the moon of pandora for one reason...why does it look like it's melting?Ze5ro1 01:38, March 3, 2010 (UTC) : What do you mean "look like it's melting"? Too busy killing everything in front of me to give it a good look. Aren't those clouds? 06:02, March 3, 2010 (UTC) Space Travel So, is there some kind of FTL travel in the Borderlands Universe? Because with some of the little side stories in the game, there would have to be, because the numerous Crimson Lance Invasions, the Dahl and Atlas exoduses. It would probably be a a slower travel, like Warp Speed. IDK, any refrences to anything in the game, or any ideas? Two near-equal mass planets explanation I don't think the body orbiting Pandora and giving it light is a moon, I think it's a planet. It seems large and if zoomed in on seems to have continent outlines/seas. If I had to guess, I'd say that Pandora and it's neighbor are two similar sized planets in orbit of one another. Meaning the center of mass is somewhere between the two and they rotate around that center - kind of like Pluto and Charon. It could explain why Pandora has a 90hr day, and yet never faces the sun (since it rotates around itself, and around the common center of mass). Actually some stuff might not add up properly, but my money is on Pandora and it's neighbor being two planets that orbit each other. ZenonSeth 23:39, April 24, 2010 (UTC) Prometheas and Pandora are saturns largest moons. i believe that the "moon" is actually saturn and the game takes place on it's moon. Also explains why some people think the moon looks like it is "melting" since saturn is a gas giant. Just a thought. 22:17, October 11, 2010 (UTC)xcspartanxc What if Pandora is tilted on its axis like Neptune? If its both tilted on its axis and ''tidal locked, then its plausible to have a 90-hour rotation period while remaining in the Goldilocks zone yet never seeing the star, assuming that Pandoran was settled on the dark (hospitable) side. Pandora's moon might still follow the solar plane, which would appear as a normal linear arc across the sky considering how quickly it orbits the planet. The conflicting forces between the planet's gravity and that of the nearby star might give the orbital variance that results in the alternating day/night cycle as the moon is constantly tugged into and out of Pandora's shadow. As to Pandora having seasons while in a severely tilted tidal locked state.. What if Pandora's star has cycles of greater and lesser activity? Our own sun has a cycle of 11 years, Pandora's might be sharper and more violent. The missing water can be accounted for as well, the seabeds in DLC3 are shown to be very shallow, assuming that the oceans are being boiled off on the far side of the planet, there could be an extremely large convection system taking place in the upper atmosphere, such a large vapor shroud would also cause the high atmospheric pressure noted by others here as the weight of all that water presses down on the planet. It Explains the lightning storms too, the clouds are there, they're just so high up that its essentially vertical weather. Sreza 15:58, October 25, 2010 (UTC) While waiting for night to fall I observed the moon and noticed there seems to be two different day/night cycles going on. Looking up at the moon, one side does seem to be more reactive than the other. On that side, you can see bright red ines in the shadow of the the giant H. When that side is facing Pandora, it does in fact seem to be a bit brighter. It gets dimmer as that side turns away and then brighter again. This cycle repeats itself, but I'm not sure on the period. A secondary cycle of night seems to come much slower, and when that comes the H-shadow slowly moves to one side of the moon while it wanes, eventually meeting the dark side and vanishing. You can see the bright lines much clearer if that side is facing Pandora. The dim/bright cycle seems to continue during this period of "true night" with the red lines of the reactive side of the moon making it a bit brighter. Odds are this is what Tannis was talking about (I have not played the first game) when she mentioned 90-hour days. She seems the type to only count it as a full "day" when the "dim/bright" and "true night/true day" cycles synch up. Also, he was absolutely right: Watching the moon shift from true day to true night is breathtaking. 16:26, January 4, 2013 (UTC) Better picture? Why doesn't somone with the PC version replay the final custsecene and take a snapshot of the pull pack showing the planet? :_very_ good idea! ty. 02:02, March 7, 2011 (UTC) New planetary information from Randy Pitchford Found this interview with Pitchford about the planetary mechanics at play on Pandora: "I actually created the physics for the way the planet works, and the planet has this elliptical orbit around its star. The habitable side of the planet actually faces against the star, so you don’t actually see the sun, ever. Meanwhile the moon has this sort of geo-synchronous position in the sky, so it’s always in the same spot in the sky. The moon has a crazy fast rotation, it takes about 20 minutes for it to spin. One side of the moon is a furnace, like a nuclear furnace, where it’s reacting and it’s super-hot, and it splashes a lot of extra light onto the planet. On the other side it’s very cold and dark, and so when the moon spins, when the hot reactive side warms up the atmosphere and it gets hot, it feels lighter outside. When you get the cold side it’s not dark, because you’re getting the ambient light from the nearby star, but it gets dim, with a sort of cold feeling, and you can also see these beautiful auroras in the sky. From that particular position I hadn’t actually looked at the light cycle from the moon spinning, and I was checking that out, so that’s what I was doing down there." Source: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/16/borderlands-2-interview/ So in short, it would seem Pandora is tidally locked to its sun, Pandora's moon is geosynchronous with a fast rotation, and the day/night cycles are from the varying surfaces and reflectivity of the moon itself. Now, about those 90-hour day comments in the game itself (someone attributed them to Tannis) as well as the "summer" which woke the planet up. perhaps those are attributable to the elliptical orbit, OR a tilt of the planet's axis, or some combination. 09:46, October 24, 2012 (UTC) Maybe with the farthest distance from the star, the 'hot' side of the moon doesn't get enough heat from the start itself, not reacting as violently. The 90-hour days statement from Tannis is indeed true, - heard it myself - which makes this new statement of the moon's rotation senseless. Not only that, but the moon's still position doesn't seem to be adding up, either. In order for the moon to be geo-synchronized in an exact position, it'd make sense if it rotated 'around' the planet with the moon's translation time exactly equal to the planet's rotation. As we see that he habitable zone of Pandora never sees the sun at any point, it's strange how the moon would translate in the same way. The only explanation I can honestly think of is the moon falling slowly onwards to Pandora (un-noticeably slow, maybe due to a fast rotation, the planet's low gravity, or both). On the other hand, the moon's 'hot' side's reactions can explain some of the flora and fauna's mutant look, incredible resistance to projectiles (bullets, duh) and adaptability to hazardous elements (AND ability to give that adaptation temporarily to the individuals of the same species). - 11:39, October 24, 2012 (UTC) No visible sun As anyone ever noticed that there is no actual sun over pandora there's sometimes a light in the sky that kind of looks like a sun but you can see right though it. I don't what it is. Some kind atmospheric light that acts as a sun. I also looked in comics and there is a sun so I don't rather it a counuity error or a some kind of glitch or what. Scoutrooper1 (talk) 08:44, December 5, 2013 (UTC) Holy carp nuts, did I write official lore for this game? Because it seems like I did. Or I somehow managed to piece together a history of Pandora from scraps and stuff out of my own ass, and SOMEHOW managed to be around 98% right. So right, in fact, that I might very well be psychic, or have access to 2K's design documents.* I mean, before I came along the 'history' section was a confusing, self-contradictory mess that didn't jive with much of anything, and none of the history-dependant DLC existed so the game was pretty much a blank slate without much info. Don't believe me? Check the write history of this wiki page, look up "Troll" with the find tool and compare versions of what it is and what it was before and after I re-wrote what was there from pretty much whole cloth. I just remembered that people were people, and even Skags and prolly Eridians gotta eat, paid attention to the ECHOs, the setting, and the flow of the largley non-existent story and went on from there and now, it seems, my history is part of the Borderlands bible influencing Knoxx, and TWO OTHER GAMES. Wow, and I didn't even get a thank you from 2K for being good at the write-thing I did, which would have been nice. P.S. : I'm also the 172.191.180.239 guy, when not logged in in the article history. *I don't have those... yet. ... Or ever, prolly. TrollofReason (talk) 07:37, December 1, 2015 (UTC) '''Possible different explanation of the day-night cycle on Pandora' The habitable regions of Pandora appear to only be illuminated by the reflection of sunlight from its moon, Elpis. The sun is never actually seen in the sky in any of the habitable areas, leading to an interesting possibility: could it be that Pandora is positioned close enough to its sun that areas which receive direct sunlight are rendered uninhabitable? This could explain the reason why habitable regions only receive light reflected from the moon - because they are technically on the dark side of the planet, yet they receieve light that has been reflected from the moon making it weaker and able to transfer less heat to the planet, having already lost some to the moon itself. This also could explain the radical variations of temperature around the planet (i.e. The Dust compared to Three Horns): when the Hyperion moon base was constructed, a large digistruct lens was placed in the centre. It is possible that both this and the rest of the base itself affected the way that light reflects off the moon, focusing it on certain places and reflecting it away from others. **Just the ravings of a non-human nerd** TheInhuman (talk) 00:04, February 18, 2016 (UTC) This page needs an enema So much bogus fanfic. Pitchford has now given us a concrete statement of the length of a Pandoran year. I don't know where I got my old "10 year" figure, but 50 certainly feels like a safer number, given how much Pandoran development seems to take place in a single cycle. Dämmerung 17:48, April 29, 2018 (UTC) Shouldn't this be reflected in the Infobox? I've search information on the 10 years thing and I found nothing. This is the mayor canon source of how much last a year in Pandora I've found. Nothing official about 10 years. 06juan90 (talk) 11:51, March 11, 2019 (UTC)